


A Little More Human

by guuzenkamo



Category: Durarara!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-10 22:23:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4410023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guuzenkamo/pseuds/guuzenkamo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Case against and for Izaya</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little More Human

I didn’t belong in that place. 

Forced to put on a suit, called out to testify on some bullshit I was never involved in, didn’t want to be involved in. Everything about that huge-ass room irritated me, from the woman who kept dancing in front of me to a whole bunch of lined-up juries who were slacking and falling asleep. I’d be angry at them but I knew better than that, because Izaya Orihara, the man responsible for all of it, was standing right there, right in front of me. He was wearing a suit, too, first time in years that I saw him in something other than his stupid fur-coat. I couldn’t bear looking at him, because god knows that I’d lose it if I had to see that shitty grin of his slapped across his idiotic face.

The woman that asked the question stared directly at me, and I struggled to keep my hands still like a goddamn drug addict. I didn’t like being there, with all of them looking at me. _How would you describe the defendant?_ was her inquiry, as if I did things like that normally. How did you go about describing fleas to people?

“I wouldn’t,” I said through my teeth. “I don’t want to have anything to do with this—”

“Let me remind you that you have agreed to testify on this,” the woman rushed to interrupt me, clearly aware that I was about to cuss in front of the judge. Right, no cursing, no breaking things, the rules were drilled into my head.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. I had to do this, this would help put an end to the stupid flea. “He’s the worst person I’ve ever known in my entire fu—uh, in my entire life,” I said and felt proud of myself. I was doing a stellar job of keeping my cool.

“You’ve known him for a long time, Heiwajima-san, having gone to the same high school and having friends in common. Could you please describe the circumstances of your first meeting?”

“Yeah, sure,” I readily nodded. We went over this, this was easy and deliciously incriminating against the pest. “He took a knife to my chest within seconds after meeting me. I still have a scar from that!” I reported, and my eyes involuntarily searched for Shinra in the room. He could confirm that since he was right next to the flea that day, but for some reason, he didn’t bother coming to the hearing. Flea’s only friend, and he didn’t even show up for a case as big as this. You couldn’t blame him, ‘cause who cared about the flea, right?

I was ready for the flea’s lawyer to object, to start rattling off about how I was technically the first one to throw a punch that day, and I tensed up in my seat, mentally going over the points we prepared for defense. That the flea provoked me, like he always did, and that a knife cut was a lot more lethal in nature and all that shit. But that middle-aged man looked completely clueless, he didn’t even move when I spoke, his eyes super-glued to the desk in front of him. I started to doubt if he was even listening to anything that was going on in the room.

Against all reason, I glanced at the skinny little shit next to the lawyer, and boy, that was the wrong thing to do. It’s always the wrong thing to do. Something as small as just looking at the flea is bound to come back at you, you know? The flea is not actually a flea, and he’s not something like a snake either, he’s a goddamn spider. Vorona told me how this works. How spiders create a giant web, and every time it catches a victim, the little strings vibrate letting the spider know where you at. The flea always knows when he’s got you, knows _where_ he’s got you, and he makes his way over to spit out more webs at you. Once you’re stuck and all, he injects venom in you which will both poison and paralyze you, oh, and digest you too, because the flea won’t chew on you whole, he’d rather wait till you’re all liquefied and _then_ drink you up in that messed-up state. He gets off on that shit, I swear.

Well, anyway, looking at the flea was the wrong thing to do. Of course, there was that shit-eating grin, and he had the fucking guts to wink at me. He mouthed something too, but I can’t read lips, and thank god for that, I didn’t want to know what he said. Maybe he said monster again? I guess that could fit the way his lips moved. Well, either way, somehow the wooden desk that my hands were on ended up snapped in half, and the judge threw me in jail for contempt. Contempt of court or whatever they declared, but how the hell did they get that? All of my contempt was for the flea!

Christ, I ended up in jail again, all thanks to him.

They warned me not to bend anything behind the bars, but I knew I’d be out by morning, so I was relatively calm. I kept thinking, this is nothing, the flea’s facing a seven-year sentence, right? I do one night, he does some thousands of them in years to come. According to the prosecutor, the flea stood no chance, and I did my job, I played a part in squashing that flea into the ground. I was fucking proud of myself.

What a fool I was.

He walked free the next day, released before even I fucking was. Bailed out, and then when the trial finished, they declared him “not guilty.”

_Not guilty._

Of all the guilty people in the world, he was the dirtiest I’d known, and yet he walked scot-fucking-free. I was furious for a few days, but then I let it go — after all, what did I care what happened with the flea? It’d be great if he was locked up and all, but if he just left me alone, I was fine, too. And seeing how I didn’t sniff anything about him for months to come, all was well in my world. 

Until it wasn’t, because one night I woke up to a knife at my throat, and the flea on top of me, sitting on me like I’m his goddamn horse or something. “Rise and shine,” he sang and looked pointedly at my hands. They were cuffed together, as if that mattered.

“You got a death wish?” I growled, but sleep was still in my eyes and I felt too groggy to make a real move. “This won’t stop me.”

“I need your help,” the flea announced and jumped off me. He sat on the edge of the bed, and I felt an adrenaline rush surging through my veins, I was prepared to take him down once and for all. 

The words he said next froze me in my place though. 

“It’s about Shinra.”

I needed to ignore that. Spiderweb, remember? Once he caught you, he had you. I needed to shut off my mind and let my instinct, let my body do the job, kill the fucker off once and for all. Sure, I would go to jail for murder, but I was prepared to take one for mankind, the world was better off without people like the flea.

But I didn’t do that. I laid still like the dumbass that I am, and ate up everything the flea cooked up for me. 

“What about Shinra?” I asked, because Shinra’s name meant Celty, and that mattered a whole lot to me.

“It’s important,” he said vaguely, moving over to sit on the windowsill and play with a string of the curtain. Staining my property with his dirty hands. “I need manpower. Like a whole squad of dumb muscle, and then a thought occurred to me. Why bother with many when I have you?”

“You don’t have me!” I barked and rose on the bed. The cuffs shattered once I gave them a tug.

“Hey, I could’ve killed you, you know? You should be grateful and _not_ kill me in return,” he promptly reminded me, and I realized that yes, yes, he could have. I was criminally careless, letting him sneak up on me like he did when I was asleep. 

The flea should have really kissed his luck that it was dark that night. I couldn’t see his face, and the only way that I even knew it was him still sitting there by the window was his rotten smell. It smelled like shit, but if I had to describe it in court where people can’t lie, it’d probably be something sharp and bitter, like a mix of citrus and some other shitty plants. I could sniff out that stench from blocks away. But the darkness, the dark really did save him that night. If I couldn’t see that sly grin, I could manage to keep my calm somewhat.

“Speak,” I muttered.

“You don’t need the details, of course,” he scoffed. “Just do as I say tonight, and everything should run smoothly. You can listen to orders, right? You always do follow that debt collector like a loyal dog.”

I breathed, three counts, one-two-three, and said. “Now why would I do that, flea? You really think you can order me around after dropping Shinra’s name and not saying anything else?”

The audacity was enraging. He was touched in the head, the fearless bug, coming here like that and goading me. This wasn’t ordinary, though, this wasn’t the norm — the flea had always been content with the usual routine. I stopped myself to think, and that might have been the wrong thing to do, but I paused and thought — if he was all the way here breaking the rules, maybe there was a good reason for it. Maybe Shinra really was in trouble.

“Everyone has a price, Shizu-chan, even someone like you.” I could hear the smile in his voice.

“I don’t need anything from you,” I spat.

“But I’m sure you could name something, right? It’s a stunning reminder of the human condition, every time I succeed to purchase a soul for something. It’s not always money, but there’s always something.”

“Is that how you got to the juries?” I asked, raising my voice. “ _Not guilty_ my ass.”

He filled the room with his shrilling laugh, and I flinched in my place. “Yes, exactly like that. All twelve of them, all so simple in their ambitions.”

“Not gonna move until you tell me what’s wrong with Shinra,” I declared, and it was true. There needed to be something damn good if I were to believe the flea.

It was silent for the next few minutes. Felt like the end of the world, like an evil omen or something, me and the flea sitting in the same room in complete silence. I almost went to pinch myself to see if I was having a nightmare, but then the flea spoke, and something in his voice made me realize this was serious. 

“There’s this man who plays dirty. He wants to lay a finger on Shinra,” he spoke quietly, but the menacing tone of his voice made it travel just as well as if it was normal volume.

“Since when do you care about Shinra?” I couldn’t help rolling my eyes. If the flea was gonna sell something to me, he’d have to do a better job. His voice was serious, but he had always been a great actor — I didn’t have enough fingers to count the times people believed his innocent act over me, because I couldn’t control my temper and he was always polite and smiling. People were real fools sometimes.

“Since the day I met him,” he answered plainly, and I thought that I was going crazy because it sounded honest. Like reporting a fact, an everyday thing, “the sun rises in the east” kinda tone.

Was I one of those fools, falling for yet another act? I probably was. But I was also an indestructible fool, and it didn’t bode well with me to ignore a potential threat to Celty’s friend. Well, she and Shinra were more than friends, but I still had trouble accepting that fact, Shinra being kinda weird and at times not quite worthy of someone as good as her.

“Aight,” I said, folding my arms on my chest. “But on one condition — after I help you, you leave me alone. _Forever_.”

This was the bargain of the fucking century for me, right there. I’d kiss flea’s feet if it meant that he’d disappear from my life. Well, on second thought, no, I wouldn’t, but let’s face it, that wasn’t gonna be on the table anyway.

“There’s our price,” he drawled, no hint of surprise in his voice. “Sure. I’ll leave you alone.”

It was that simple, my ticket to freedom, my key to a less violent life. I rolled off the bed and quickly dressed. Tonight was going to be a long night, but it was worth it.

!

Say what you want about the flea, but he can run like hell when he wants. People might have the wrong idea that I don’t actually try to catch him, but I really do, the only reason he keeps walking free is because of that superhuman agility and speed. How many times have I run out of breath, looking up at the next building he jumped to, standing there and smiling like it was nothing, all that distance we covered?

Anyway, that night was the same — I had trouble keeping up with him. He’d stop from time to time to turn around in profile and smile back at me, fucking basking in the fact that I couldn’t keep up, and for a good ten minutes I actually forgot I was following him to _help_ , not to beat up. 

Eventually, he stopped at the main road and caught a cab, and I dove into the back seat, huffing quietly. If the flea did good and kept his mouth shut through the entire thing, I thought we’d manage. I still didn’t know what the hell he was planning, but I could always walk out if it was something stupid.  
I thought that, but then went and spoke first myself. 

“Why the hell did we run that much if we’re taking a cab?” I asked angrily. Sometimes I just shoot myself in the foot like that. He always comes back with something clever, and yet I keep asking for it. Well, we can’t really victim-blame, it’s still the flea’s fault.

“So you don’t go forgetting who is superior between the two of us.”

I could reach out and crush his tiny head with one hand — he was sitting in the passenger seat, his hairs sticking out against the leather — but I counted to three and kept my cool. The counting thing I learned from Tom, it proved real useful at times.

We got off at some docks, with ships coming in and everything. It was some kind of port, I’d never been in this part of town before. 

“Care to clue me in on the grand plan?” I asked, as we began walking down the wooden pier. 

The air was thick with the smell of the ocean and fish, but I didn’t mind it so much. It actually felt kind of nice, the breeze was pleasant, and the waves were pretty under the moonlight.

“The plan is you listen to what I say,” the flea said, walking a little ahead of me. He barely looked at me since the beginning of this whole ordeal, and I was okay with that. I could pretend I was helping Tom or something, so long as I didn’t have to see that maddening grin.

Still, his words were his sharpest weapons. I scoffed at his reply, but didn’t press it. He’d only answer with more stupid words. 

In silence, we walked for the next ten blocks, and I wondered why we didn’t just ride the cab farther down the road, but I was past trying to hold a conversation. Peace and quiet, that was good with me, even in flea’s company. 

We reached our apparent destination in front of one of those fancy bright buildings that had a doorman, reception desk and probably things like a gym, swim pools and whatnot. It stood many stories tall, and I craned my neck trying to see the top of it. 

“Close your mouth,” he looked at me, amused. “You’ll catch fleas.”

“Already caught one,” I grumbled, but closed my mouth anyway. 

He sleazed his way in somehow — talked to the doorman for a few minutes, exchanged a discreet handshake, and the guy really let us in. I shook my head in disapproval, what a poor excuse of security.

On the tenth floor, he stopped in front of one of the shiny black doors, turned to me and said, “Break it.”

I looked at him, confused. He didn’t really think I’d go around breaking the law for him?

“No way,” I refused, plain and simple. 

“Do it,” he insisted, tilting his head. “You _promised_.”

“I didn’t fucking promise,” I said, but then came the creeping realization that this was the string of my death. The proverbial string of the spiderweb that pulled me in — my word that I was going to help him. The flea knew me well enough to predict that it’d be hard for me to go back on a promise. Still, I had to resist this. “This is breaking and entering, flea.”

“He’s not gonna call the cops on you, silly. The man is a wanted criminal in multiple countries,” he gave me a condescending look, but I was too busy dealing with my moral dilemma to get riled up about it. 

“What about the cameras?” I turned to look at the end of the corridor. There were little flickering devices installed in each corner.

“I took care of that,” the flea smiled arrogantly. “You think I didn’t do my homework before coming here?”

I hesitated. A wanted criminal? Well, that meant whoever was inside was a scum anyway. I’d beaten people up for far less. My voice of reason was ringing loud bells of alarm, reminding me that it could all be a set-up, maybe it was someone innocent, and I’d go to jail for this. But the flea had been right next to me the whole time — would he really take me down if it meant going down with me? Something told me he would.

“Come _on_ ,” the flea hissed in an urgent whisper, his narrowed eyes fixed on me. “How can you be so backwards, Shizu-chan? You mess people up all the time — remember why you lost your bartender job? You beat up the manager because he _annoyed_ you! How can you have such a strong lawful compass when you have zero regard for boundaries?”

“ _Fine_ ,” I muttered and broke the door down with a loud crack, just to shut him up. I could pay for it later if need be, fuck. Well, maybe not — the building looked like it was full of rich people.

Anyway, the flea sneaked in first, and I saw him take out a knife as he did so. I followed after, silently wondering if I should let him die if something happened or if my conscience was too strong to let that happen. I could see it going either way.

The apartment was empty, though. Stuff was scattered all over, as if someone did a thorough search, tables flipped and pillows ripped. The flea looked at the feathers underneath his feet and let out a disappointed sigh.

“We missed him.”

“Why the fuck did you need me for this?” I asked, looking around the small place. “You could take on one guy yourself.”

That’s when I heard it — the shot that tore my eardrums. I can’t really remember what happened after, not in much detail. When adrenaline takes over my body, everything becomes kind of a blur. Anyway, when I woke up, I was sitting on top of an unconscious guy I’d never met before, his face messed up and my knuckles bleeding. Adding the two together, it was obvious what happened. The flea was tugging on my sleeve — “We need to get out of here” — and I followed him, still out of it, my legs all wobbly and shit.

It wasn’t until we were ten minutes away from the place that I realized he was walking with a limp. 

“You get shot?” I froze in my place.

He looked at me in surprise. One of the rare times that I saw those red eyes reflecting an emotion that wasn’t evil. “You just now notice? Shizu-chan, you were right next to me.” He shook his head in disbelief, and I guess I did look pretty stupid.

“Well, shit,” I blurted. “You should go to Shinra’s.”

The flea ignored me and kept walking. Well, if he said he was fine, he was probably fine. Not like I cared.

“Who the fuck was it?” I demanded. “I beat up a guy for you, least you can do is tell me. How do I know this had to do with Shinra?”

“You don’t,” the flea giggled. “You’re so stupidly gullible, it’s _almost_ adorable.”

“ _Izaya_ ,” I growled. “You do realize you can’t exactly run at the moment? Don’t push your luck.”

He waved his hand, as if my threats meant nothing. Normally that’d rile me up, but I felt too happy to care — the job was done, I beat up some random ass for him, and he was going to leave me alone forever. I’d take this kind of bargain any day, and luckily, I only had to take it once.

!

Or so I thought, because a month later I woke up to almost exactly the same scenario. Say what you want about the flea, but he’s good at reading people — I _was_ gullible. 

My nose tingled at the smell, and I jerked awake. His skinny silhouette was against the window, head turning towards me when I sat up with a groan.

“What, no knife or cuffs this time?”

“I thought we were friendlier these days,” he spoke, and I was sure he was wearing that grin. “Did you like the cuffs?”

“Get outta here,” I said, rolling over to the other side. “You promised you’d leave me alone, flea.”

I tried to ignore him and _sleep_ , but who was I kidding? I could hear him rustling against the curtains, humming something quietly. He had no intention of leaving me alone.

I threw off the covers, ready to mess him up, teach the flea a lesson about what happened to those who wandered into a lion’s den. He signed his death sentence when he decided he could pull something like this twice and leave in one piece.

“Whoah,” he raised his arms in defense when I hovered over him. “Breathe, Shizu-chan. One, two, three, right?”

I threw a punch, but he ducked, and my fist met the wall. There was a hole there now, and I took the time to reconsider my actions and their consequences. I didn’t want to mess up my own place.

“You shouldn’t be so angry,” the flea spoke, sitting on my bed now. The bed barely budged under his light weight. “I saved Shinra, you know? I worked with the police, provided them with the gun that matched their ballistic reports from other cases.”

“What gun?” I gritted my teeth. If I punched him right now, I’d destroy my own bed.

“The one that guy shot me with. Well, actually, he was aiming at you, but I was in the way.”

I frowned; the flea was actually talking. “How was he connected to Shinra?”

“The man who hired him is after our Headless Rider. But you know how it works, right?”

He spoke in riddles, and that maddened me. I didn’t want to admit I had no idea how it worked.

“Well, perhaps you don’t know,” he looked at me with sympathy. “Celty is impossible to catch, but the key to Celty is Shinra,” he explained patiently. 

The dawn was breaking, and it was actually quite bright in the room. Of course, the flea had been smiling the whole time. It lacked the usual edge, though. He looked a little unhealthy, to be honest, seemed skinnier than usual and had bags under the eyes. 

“Why’d you need me?” I repeated the question that bothered me from the beginning. “It was just one guy.”

“I couldn’t take on that guy alone. A monster like you did, though.”

“Why?” I blinked. The flea could surely take on one guy, he regularly sparred with me.

“Because he was an Immortal,” the flea answered, like the word meant something to me. Maybe it was the name of a gang or something. “Anyway,” the flea continued, “The worst is over for now; they backed off after I got the police on their tail. They don’t want to attract too much attention.”

I stood in silence, leaned against the wall, processing the information. If I understood correctly, the flea saved Celty, because he wanted to keep Shinra safe.

“Oh, they’re the reason I accidentally got myself arrested, by the way,” the flea giggled. “It’s harder to make flawless moves when your motives are personal.”

“Did you tell Shinra?” I asked.

“No,” the flea shook his head with a wider smile. “If you tell him, I will send hundreds of people after you. I’ll even place a bounty on your head.”

“Then why tell me?” I groaned. “Fuck, I don’t need to know this kind of stuff about you.”

I didn’t want to know that the flea _cared_ about something. 

“I’m not sure,” he said, bringing his skinny shoulders into a shrug. “I guess I was bored.”

!

Things changed after that.

Fuck, how I hated it. Change is always annoying. I’d catch the flea in Ikebukuro, and I couldn’t bring myself to get that mad anymore, not at first sight like before. He still taunted me, and I still got angry enough to chase him until he left the area, but it lacked the usual sincerity to it. Like I was paying homage to the way things were rather than acting on how I really felt. 

Things changed, because now Izaya seemed more _human_. He always went on about how I’m a monster, and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree — I do think myself a monster. But I always thought he was one, too, in a different way — he was a heartless, backstabbing, no-good piece of shit, too evil to be considered human. Now that there was something redeeming about him, I couldn’t see him the same way.

It wasn’t like he stopped doing whatever sketchy shit he was doing before, either. Just the other day I caught him tormenting a bunch of high-school kids on some corner and chased him off just so he’d leave the poor souls alone. But he still looked human, even then.

I was in denial about it for a while, about disliking him less, I mean. It wasn’t until I was over at Shinra’s for some random party that they decided to throw that I confirmed it for myself and everyone else, in the most embarrassing way possible.

It was me, Celty, Shinra and their friends, the Ryuugaki kid and his two classmates. Oh, and Izaya’s sisters, too. We ordered pizza, and everyone wanted to watch a horror flick or something like that. Halfway through the movie, they began comparing the main villain to Izaya, and Shinra was the one laughing the loudest, and that irritated the hell out of me.

“He’s not that bad,” I blurted, and the words were met with an ear-cutting silence. Everyone stared at me, Shinra was gaping, and I felt pressed to say more. “Izaya, I mean, he’s not as bad as this guy.” I pointed at the screen to make my case — the villain was cutting up a woman with a crazy look on his face. Come on, that was a complete psycho who performed surgeries on people for fun. Surely, it shouldn't have been that much of a shock that _someone_ would think it was a stretch to compare the two.

“Uh, who are you, and what did you do with our friend Shizuo?” Shinra finally spoke up, laughing awkwardly. Celty’s black frame was frozen still, as if she saw an alien.

“How super sweet of you to defend Iza-nii!” Mairu jumped up in her seat and moved over to give me a hug. Kururi followed suit, and I felt cold in my bones. Fuck, I really didn’t think this through. It was too late to begin back-pedaling though, so I just nodded stiffly, and the evening went on.

The truth was, I just didn’t feel much about Izaya anymore. He was a regular person like everyone else, and the world is full of all kinds of people, right? These days he even toned down his attacks on me, and last couple times I was the one who initiated stuff - I chased him off from doing sketchy stuff in ‘bukuro, and that was all there was to it.

!

Izaya visited me more after that. He always appeared at night, disturbing my sleep, and every time I wondered, what did I do wrong in this life to deserve him?

“I heard you defended my honor in front of everyone the other day,” he giggled, sitting in his favorite spot on the windowsill. 

“What does that say about you?” I snarled sleepily, hiding deeper under the blankets. “No one else would, and Shinra is supposed to be your _friend_.”

“Shinra doesn’t care about anyone but the Dullahan,” Izaya pointed, and I inwardly agreed with him. “Still, you? What’s gotten over you?”

I stifled a groan, because I was _not_ having this conversation with him. Still, I had to say something, or he’d get ideas.

“They were comparing you to a complete psychopath,” I said defensively. “Like someone who cut people up for fun.”

“That does sound like me though,” Izaya tilted his head. I could read the frame of his body against the blue of the dark.

On second thought, it kinda did sound like him. Why did I disagree back then again?

“Yeah, okay, my bad,” I grumbled. “You’re the worst. Now get lost, and let me sleep.”

The room went silent, and I peeked out of my blanket to check if he fell asleep or something, but he was gone. The curtains were blowing with the wind, and I promised myself I would get a window lock installed first thing in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> (I don't think the Japanese legal system has juries)


End file.
